Page 37 of The Start of the Story
Another moment of breathing. ‘I wanted a bigger gap, you see,’ Saoirse said. ‘Maeve was only ten months when I fell for Fionnula, and she was such a difficult baby, and then I had the two of them and Michael off with the new job. We’d moved over to Dublin for him, with my mum back in Killarney and her not able to drive.’
Talking about her children seemed to help. Saoirse’s voice had become a little stronger and she’d stopped gasping.
‘Michael said it would be good to have them close, he’s two sisters and a brother and all of them within the seven years. But I wanted to wait, let Maeve get a bit more independent before… They’re so hard and Michael not there most nights. I just wanted…’
‘You wanted to escape,’ I said gently. ‘I wanted to. After Elliot. When the worst of the pain had gone, I wanted to move somewhere where nobody had known him. Where I could be someone else.’
‘Yes! And I’d always wanted to do the photographs, you know. But then Michael came along, and we were buying a house and I needed to work for the mortgage. So I gave up the course I was doing and went to work for the airline so we could put a roofover our heads. Then I fell for Maeve so quickly when we started trying…’ She stopped. ‘I’m sorry.’
I felt my heart lift a little. She was feeling empathy, that was good. ‘No, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’ve often thought, if Ihadbeen pregnant, if I’d had to go through pregnancy and birth and then having our baby, all with Elliot gone, it would have been worse. I mean, yes, to have a reminder of him, but – all alone? I would never have been able to do it.’
‘Ah, you would, now.’ That almost sounded like a smile. ‘You get on with it.’
‘Well.’ I couldn’t follow that up, because the tears were in my throat now. I’d never know.
‘When I met Connor he was so sweet and kind and funny, and – I don’t know. I sort of slipped into being the Saoirse that I wanted to be. I’d leave the girls with Michael when he came back and I’d go to Connor, and…’ A choke. ‘I’ve ruined everything.’
‘You can still fix some of it,’ I said gently. ‘Go back to Ireland. Get some help. Maybe you’ve lost your marriage, maybe it’s saveable, I can’t know that, but you’ve got your girls. Perhaps you can do photography when your little one is a bit older? But you need help first of all. You seem to have been so depressed you hardly knew what you were doing.’
‘Oh, I knew.’ The voice was bitter now. ‘It was like I didn’t care what happened to me. I didn’t want to bemeany more.’
I remembered that night in my bathroom. All those pills, lined up on the shelf. Knowing that I could work my way, end to end, and not wake up to this life on another morning of dark emptiness.
‘Maybe you could see a doctor,’ I went on, carefully not going back to the subject of children. ‘See what they say. You might need a bit of help to get you back to yourself again.’
‘I could move back to Kerry.’ She sounded thoughtful. ‘Back to Tralee, or to Killarney, near Mam.’
There was a scuffle and a click and the bedroom door opened. Saoirse stood in the gap, her face reddened with crying and her eyes bleary. ‘I’ve got a kettle,’ she said. ‘Would you be liking some tea now?’
I spent the night sitting on the edge of Saoirse’s bed, looking at photographs of her daughters on her phone, and making cups of tea while she spoke to her mother, who was clearly panicking wildly aboutherdaughter. Saoirse seemed calmer, seemed to have taken on board what she’d done, but I knew that was only because I was here. If I’d left her to the dark and the long sleepless night, everything would have crowded back in again, pushing and shoving at her brain like a football crowd, letting all the doubts and the fear rise. She needed medication; she needed someone to listen. She needed to be validated as a woman, and that was what she’d used Connor for. He’d thought he was starting a relationship that was going to lead somewhere, falling for this fragile, pale woman and her fabricated life.
Somewhere around two or three in the morning, Saoirse fell asleep, curled up on the bed. I thought about tiptoeing away and driving back to my own bed, but then I thought of her waking alone again, to the memories and the horror, and tried to doze off myself in the little armchair by the window. But the dreams were here and wouldn’t let me rest, as though they’d been given new life by my resurrecting the memories to help Saoirse.
I dreamed of Elliot, leaving that morning, complaining about a pain in his shoulder and feeling groggy. How I’d had little sympathy, hurrying him out of the door to work so that I could do the test in the bathroom and deal with the almost inevitable disappointment alone. I dreamed of that faint line on the pregnancy test, the astonishment and the sudden rise of excitement; the way I’d hugged that knowledge to myself like a longed-for present, and the way all the anticipation and joy hadbeen forgotten when that phone call had come into my office, and I’d run for the hospital.
Then two days later, the bleeding, the dashing of hope, but I’d hardly been able to care, because my hope and joy had already gone, along with Elliot.
I woke to the surreal purple light of the Christmas illuminations under the window and the sound of Pickering starting its day. Saoirse was sitting up on the bed, back to being pale and troubled.
‘What am I going to do, Rowan?’ She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. ‘I was dreaming of Connor and Michael.’
I shook my head. The dream-memories were still with me too. ‘I can’t tell you what to do, Saoirse,’ I said sadly. ‘I really can’t.’
‘Michael is a good man,’ she went on. ‘He just doesn’t know what it’s like with two wee ones at home all the time. And Connor…’ she went off into a reverie, staring at a corner of the room so hard that I wondered if there was anything about that illustration of the lighthouse at Flamborough Head that reminded her of Connor, ‘…he’s lovely too. He makes me feel like I used to, before the girls.’ A shake of the head. ‘But it’s not real. None of it was real.’ She brought her gaze around to my face now. ‘I think you’re right. I need help,’ she said. ‘But I have to face reality too, and I don’t know if I can.’
‘It’s not going to be easy,’ I said gently. ‘It will take time. But the girls will get older and easier, and you’ll find yourself again.’
She smiled. ‘When did you get so wise about all this?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve had three years to find out. I thought my life was over when Elliot died, but I’ve made another life since then. It’s different and it’s got holes in it, but it’s there and it’s up to me to do something with it.’
There was a noise outside on the landing, what sounded like a hushed conversation, and then a tap on the door.
Saoirse stared at me. ‘What do I do?’
‘Just open the door. Take it from there, I should.’
She opened the door. On the threshold stood a large man with flaming-red hair carrying a small child who had equally red hair and was asleep. Next to him stood a little woman in a mac she held the hand of a toddler who looked as though sleep was never going to be an option.
